# CRIF case shows: Public registries are increasingly being misused

- Type: News
- Source: noyb - European Center for Digital Rights
- Date: 2026-01-20
- Original: https://noyb.eu/en/crif-case-shows-public-registries-are-increasingly-being-misused
- Canonical: https://overview.legal/posts/52489
- Topics: Breach Impact Assessment and Severity Determination

## Summary

Credit Scoring An investigation into data flows at the Austrian credit agency CRIF has shed further light on the matter: most of the address data in the CRIF database comes from address brokers AZ Direct (Bertelsmann Group), Compass-Verlag and DPIT in Vienna. But where do these address traders get their data from? A new noyb evaluation involving more than 2,400 affected individuals shows that they access public registers such as the company and land registers, the register of associations and th

## Full text

Credit Scoring An investigation into data flows at the Austrian credit agency CRIF has shed further light on the matter: most of the address data in the CRIF database comes from address brokers AZ Direct (Bertelsmann Group), Compass-Verlag and DPIT in Vienna. But where do these address traders get their data from? A new noyb evaluation involving more than 2,400 affected individuals shows that they access public registers such as the company and land registers, the register of associations and the Business Information System (GISA) which was introduced in 2015. Compass also lists the chamber of commerce (WKO) as a data source. However, it remains unclear where AZ Direct (CRIF’s largest data supplier) obtains its data. AZ Direct says it does not know where it got the data on 7 million people in Austria. Data extracted from public registers. The credit agency CRIF obtains most of its address data from the address brokers AZ Direct, Compass-Verlag and DPIT. Thanks to access requests made o

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Generated by overview.legal · https://overview.legal/posts/52489 · 2026-08-22